


Christmas

by redcandle17



Series: The Holidays [3]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5510879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern American AU. Slit is influenced by the girls to embrace the Christmas spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas

“The girls are putting up their Christmas tree today and they told me to bring you,” Nux had said to him.

Except somehow Nux and Capable had gone off to buy the actual tree by themselves and left Slit behind. Slit would have expected the other girls, or at least the Dag and Cheedo to be excited over choosing a tree, but it seemed they’d gotten over that. Or maybe they’d had Christmas trees in the cult. Slit wasn’t going to ask. He was curious about a lot of things about their past, but the potential for asking something that might hurt their feelings was too great so he didn’t ask anything about it. 

But today he learned that watching Patrick Swayze movies was something they’d done while they were the cult leader’s “wives” and it was apparently something they really, really liked.

Slit was sitting on the couch and petting Nux’s and Capable’s ‘baby’. “Five weeks,” he said to the kitten. “Five weeks exactly and they haven’t named you yet. What’s going to happen when they have kids?”

“Well, that’s hardly the same thing,” Toast said. “They’ll have months to decide on a name before their possible future children are born.”

“I call him Cat One,” Cheedo said.

Slit just looked at her. That was a stupid name, but he was reluctant to tell her so. 

She explained, “Dad calls his dogs Dog One and Dog Two even though we named them for him when they were adopted.” 

“That’s Max’s futile attempt at pretending he doesn’t love them insanely,” the Dag said. “But on to a very important question: _Ghost_ first, or _Dirty Dancing_ first?”

“ _Roadhouse_ ,” Slit said, but it seemed he didn’t get a vote. They ignored him. 

“Let’s get _Ghost_ out of the way first, those scenes still scare me.”

“What scenes?” Slit asked. _Ghost_ was almost a chick flick, he couldn’t think of anything scary about it.

“When bad people die and those wailing black shapes drag them off to hell,” Cheedo said.

The Dag gave Cheedo a quick hug and kissed her on the forehead. “Those used to be my favorite scenes. I used to imagine it happening to Joe.”

“Capable would vote for _Dirty Dancing_.”

“Capable isn’t here.”

“Exactly. We should watch _Ghost_ first, so we’re ready to move onto _Dirty Dancing_ by the time she gets back.” 

All three of them squeezed onto the couch with him. Slit was going to get up and give them more space, but then the Dag leaned against him. They were trapping him so he’d have to watch the movie with them. But it wasn’t as unpleasant as it should have been. 

The kitten fell asleep on his lap and then Toast started leaning on him too. Slit was tempted to take a selfie and caption it ‘covered in pussy’ but the girls would kill him if he posted that. Or if they knew he’d even thought about it. 

They’d reached the scene where the ghost possessed Whoopi Goldberg to make out with Demi Moore when Capable came in, followed by a tree and Nux. The girls jumped up to help. Slit didn’t. Clearly Nux could carry the thing by himself. 

He watched with fascination as the girls directed Nux to mount it on some sort of stand and then they watered it. He never knew you had to water a Christmas tree. He would have preferred to just keep watching and serving as Cat One’s bed, but the girls had boxes and boxes of decorations and they demanded Slit get up and help. It wasn’t just the tree, they decorated the inside of the house, too, and when Slit thought it was finally over, they forced him outside and began decorating the exterior of the house. 

When it was all done, they turned off the lights in the house and turned on the lights on the tree and just sat there watching it. Slit was hungry, but it felt like he’d ruin their little ritual if he complained, so he kept his mouth shut. At least Morsov hadn’t been invited. 

Finally, finally, they turned off the Christmas tree lights and turned back on the regular lights. Then they ordered Chinese takeout and started watching _Dirty Dancing_. Slit wanted to leave, but he was afraid he wouldn’t be invited again if they thought he didn’t like hanging out with them. This movie was definitely a chick flick, and Nux and Capable were sharing an armchair meant for a single person. They had their cat child with them too. 

Slit could have moved the other armchair to where he’d be able to see the television, but sitting on the floor fit his mood better. He didn’t even have to look to know who it was when one of the girls put her foot on his shoulder like he was a footrest. Cheedo wouldn’t be that rude and Toast was too short to reach him. He did react, however, when the Dag started prodding his ear with her big toe. 

He shoved her foot off him and turned around to glare at her. 

She looked unrepentant. “Somebody’s gotten grouchy. Didn’t we feed you enough?”

“I’m fine, I just don’t want your toe in my ear.”

“Sounds kinky,” Cheedo said. 

“Toast, take him home. I don’t need his Grinch vibes dampening my Christmas spirit.”

Instead of objecting to being ordered to drive him home, Toast bounced up like she didn’t mind at all. “Come on, Slit,” she said. 

They didn’t talk until they were in her SUV. “Should I take you to your place or somewhere else?”

“A bar. Any bar.” He had a couple of favorites, but those weren’t places he’d ever take her or the other girls.

She stopped at the first bar she saw, and Slit was surprised when she parked the SUV. He forced a grin. “You don’t have to come in with me. I think I’ll be safe from anyone looking to take advantage of me.”

“What sort of friend would I be if I let you go drinking alone?”

She ordered a margarita and took small sips of it while Slit drank rum and coke. 

“Slow down. I can’t carry you if you end up too drunk to walk.”

He was torn between being pleased she was there and being irritated by it. The more he drank, the more he had to remind himself that she was off-limits. He wished she’d leave so he could look for someone who’d have sex with him. 

“You were normal before you got kidnapped by that cult, right?”

She raised both eyebrows. “I suppose. Are you saying I’m not normal now?”

Slit waved a hand. “Didn’t mean to imply that. I mean, you believed in Santa Claus when you were a kid?”

She nodded. 

“I didn’t. Nux either. I don’t understand the whole thing. Are kids really that dumb? And, more importantly, why the fuck do adults encourage them to believe in something they know isn’t real?!”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t like it, it’s stupid.” 

She smiled, but she didn’t say anything in response. 

Slit fell into that brooding state he always ended up in whenever he drank without there being someone to fight or someone to try to hook up with. He didn’t like it. It took all the fun out of drinking. He wasn’t paying to feel worse, damn it. 

“Are you ready for me to take you home?” Toast asked.

“Yeah.”

They passed one of those 24 hour Walmarts on the way to his neighborhood. “Stop. Go back to the Walmart.”

Toast drove back to Walmart and actually succeeded in finding a spot in the parking lot that wasn’t a mile away from the store. 

“Stay here,” Slit said, when she unbuckled her seatbelt. 

“You’re not planning to rob it, right?”

He didn’t think it was entirely a joke, not when she was looking so uneasy. “No, I just don’t want you seeing what I’m buying.”

He made the cashier put his stuff in huge bags and then insisted she double the bags. Toast looked very curious when he returned to the vehicle, but she didn’t ask questions. 

Slit didn’t invite her inside when she dropped him off outside his building. “Thanks,” he said.

She apparently forgot he wasn’t a chick. She watched and didn’t drive off until he was inside the building. 

Slit made himself an omelet and drank a couple bottles of beer. Then he emptied the Walmart bags and began putting up the stuff. 

He didn’t remember going to bed, but he was lying on his bed with his bedroom door open when Nux came home and exclaimed, “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Slit went out into the living room and admired his previous night’s handiwork. It might not be up to Martha Stewart’s standards, but he’d done pretty damn well. 

“Did Toast do this?” Nux demanded.

“I did.”

“Why?!”

“I felt like it.”

Nux sat down and stared at the artificial Christmas tree like he didn’t know what it was. Then he seemed to notice the sparkly stuff draped about and the wreath on the back of the door. Slit had even cleaned and tidied up too. Nux looked at him as if waiting for an explanation.

Slit had no explanation. 

Nux exhaled like he was dealing with some big, important developments. It was just a damn Christmas tree. Slit scowled at him, ready to attack if he said something stupid. 

“We’ll need presents. You got to have presents under a Christmas tree.”

Slit stared at him. They’d never gotten each other presents in all the years they’d grown up together and lived together. Sure, they’d shared stuff, and bought - or stole - stuff for each other, but they’d never exchanged actual gift-wrapped, this-is-for-you-for-this-holiday presents. 

“Yeah, guess we do,” he said. Then he realized something major. He had to get Christmas gifts for the girls. And they had to be gifts that would make them think he was a great person to know and awesome to have as a friend. 

Slit went back into his room to start his Christmas list. 

For days he spent his hours at work thinking of what to get for the girls instead of his usual imagining terrible things happening to the people on the other end of the phone. 

The Dag was the easiest. She had a small greenhouse behind her house where she gardened during winter. He ordered packets of deadly nightshade seeds as well as oleander and a few others. He thought she’d find it amusing to have a ‘murder’ section in her garden. 

Capable was the second easiest. Slit got her a dog collar and a leash for Nux. 

He wanted to get Toast a Glock 30, but he suspected the other girls might have a problem with that. And it might seem weird to spend so much more on her gift than on everyone else’s. He settled for getting her pepper spray disguised to look like lipstick and a taser that was also a flashlight. The taser he got her was more powerful than the small, fit-in-a-purse one she’d threatened him with the first time they’d met. This one would be good to keep in the Escalade’s glove compartment. 

He couldn’t decide what to get Cheedo. What did you get for a person with the sort of questionable taste that led them to date the likes of Morsov? She did like makeup and stuff like that. She owned what had looked to him like a hundred bottles of nail polish. 

“What’s the name of that store in the mall that only sells makeup?” he asked the woman in the cubicle next to his. 

She looked shocked, presumably because he’d ignored her telling him ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ until she stopped months ago. “Sephora.”

Slit was able to order a gift card online, thankfully, so he didn’t have to enter the store. He didn’t want to ruin what seemed to be the best part of getting a present, though, so he wrapped the card in tissue paper and put it in a box. Then he put that box inside a larger box. He was carefully wrapping it and the presents for the other girls when Nux stuck a gift bag under their tree. 

“What the hell is that?”

Nux looked mystified by his tone, clearly ignorant of his offense. “Your Christmas present.”

“That’s lazy and lame. Wrap it! I’ll even let you use some of my paper.”

“Are you serious?!”

“Are you going to give your girlfriend her present in a fucking bag too?!”

“Well, yeah.”

“Are you saying Capable’s not worth the effort of wrapping it like a proper goddamn gift?!”

“Geez, Slit, chill.” 

Slit glared at him.

Nux started muttering under his breath, but he grabbed a roll of wrapping paper printed with tiny reindeer, snatched his stupid gift bag from under the tree, and went back into his room. 

Slit affixed red bows to each of the presents for the girls and a green one to Nux’s present, and then admired his work. He was taking photos of his photo-worthy gift-wrapping when Nux came back out with a sloppily wrapped package. 

“You’d better let me wrap Capable’s gift for you,” he offered. 

“How the hell did you turn into Santa-zilla?”

“If we’re going to do this Christmas thing, we’re going to do it perfectly.”

Nux seemed happy enough to test Slit’s attempts at making eggnog. When Capable called him, he told her, “I’d love to, baby, but you’re going to have to come here. I’m kinda drunk. Slit’s trying to make eggnog.”

Slit deemed his last batch to be perfect just in time. Capable showed up at their door - and she’d brought the other girls with her.

“We heard Slit was making eggnog,” the Dag said. 

The only place to sit was the couch. He and Nux didn’t even have kitchen chairs. Slit felt embarrassed. Now that they knew people like the girls, they’d have to start living like boring normal people. 

“Presents for us,” Cheedo exclaimed, reading the name tags on Slit’s perfectly wrapped presents. 

Capable hugged him. “You’re such a cleverly disguised sweetheart.”

Slit hoped she still thought so when she opened her present. 

“This is delicious,” Toast told him, after taking her first sip of eggnog. 

“Yeah, it’s almost as good as mine,” the Dag said. 

Nux and Capable argued over names for their cat, in between kissing, and the Dag invaded Slit’s room to explore it. Cheedo just stared at the presents and smiled, compelling Slit to keep an eye on her, lest she tried to open hers early. 

“We heard from Nux that he came home to find the place like this,” Toast said to Slit. “Was it Christmas stuff you bought that night you had me stop at Walmart?”

Slit nodded. 

She smiled like she, too, might hug him and calling him a sweetheart, but she didn’t. 

The Dag stuck her head out and announced, “This psycho’s got a wall of knives.”

“How else am I supposed to see my collection and keep the place uncluttered?”

“You really do?” Toast asked. “Can I see?”

“Sure. Thanks for asking,” he said, staring pointedly at the Dag.

The Dag stuck her tongue out at him. 

“I’m going to go through your things next time I’m over at the house,” Slit told her.

“No problem,” she replied, leaving his room to come get more eggnog. “Just don’t be surprised by my vibrators.”

Slit thought about asking why she needed more than one vibrator, but decided against it. 

The girls took their presents with them when they left, to put under their own tree, but Slit made them promise not to open them without him. 

His tree looked a little sad with only Nux’s present for him and his present for Nux under it. He’d have to figure out a way to get more presents next year, assuming Nux wasn’t living with Capable by then. 

A few days later the girls posted photos of themselves dressed as elves and singing to old people. Apparently carolling at nursing homes was a thing they did every year. Slit wished they’d invited him along. He wouldn’t have worn the elf costume and he couldn’t sing, but it would have been fun to watch them. 

“Hey, Capable says you’re invited to spend Christmas Eve night at their house,” Nux informed him one evening. 

“Like a sleepover?” They were all too old for that kind of sleepover, but Slit wouldn’t mind seeing how the girls spent Christmas.

Nux shrugged. “If you want to call it that.”

Christmas Eve Slit showed up at the girls’ house with a sleeping bag, only to be laughed at. 

Surprisingly, it was the Dag who stopped laughing first and told the others to stop. “It must be because of Halloween when you fell asleep on the sofa, Toast, and he slept on the floor to guard you.”

She said to Slit, “You don’t have to sleep on the floor, silly puppy. You can sleep in Angharad’s old room.”

“But there are four bedrooms and four of you.” Slit was confused.

“I live in the attic,” the Dag said. 

“The attic?”

“It suits me. I like it.”

Slit had asked Nux whether Angharad would be visiting and had been relieved to learn that she would not. Apparently she was accompanying the professor she assisted on some research trip somewhere. 

The Dag’s eggnog was almost as good as his, and Slit was happy to find that there would be no watching of chick flicks tonight. Tonight was the girls’ annual Christmas Eve _Home Alone_ marathon. Though Capable decided she’d rather teach Nux how to bake gingerbread cookies and Nux decided he’d rather learn to bake. 

Slit was certain it was just an excuse to be alone together, until they reappeared during _Home Alone 2_ with freshly baked cookies - and an announcement.

“We’ve decided on a name,” Capable said, scooping the cat up off Slit’s lap. 

“Kenneth Shadow,” Nux announced, so proudly that Slit felt he should be giving out cigars.

“We compromised. Nux wanted to name him Kenneth Kitten and I wanted to name him Mister Shadow.”

Slit glanced at the other girls, but if they thought this was weird, they weren’t showing it. Then again, it was better than calling him Cat One. He grabbed his present for the cat formerly known as Cat One, intending to write his new name on the tag. 

Cheedo squealed and grabbed a present too, apparently unable to restrain herself any longer. 

“One, Cheedo,” the Dag said. “Just one.”

“Everyone gets to open one gift tonight,” Capable explained to Nux and Slit. 

The Dag grabbed a gift and thrust it at Slit. “Open mine.”

Slit was almost afraid to see what she’d gotten him. He tore open the wrapping - and that was as much fun as it looked on television - and found himself looking at a pocket pussy. He only knew what it was because ads for it popped up sometimes when he was watching porn. Slit had never before blushed in his life, but he felt his face burning now. 

The Dag was laughing uproariously, and the other girls seemed amused too. Nux just looked scandalized. 

“That was terrible,” Toast chided the Dag, but she was smiling. 

The Dag tossed Slit’s gift to Toast to her. “Let’s see what he got you.”

All the girls decided to open their presents from Slit. He felt nervous as they unwrapped them. What if they hated them. 

Cheedo finished tearing hers apart first. “Thanks, Slit. I’ll use this to buy cologne for Morsov’s birthday next month.”

Slit refused to take the bait. 

Capable was second. “Really, Slit?” she said, and Nux hit him with the leash. 

The Dag examined the collar. “You got his name personalized on it? Good one!”

“I was expecting a knife,” Toast said, upon revealing her pepper spray and taser. “This is surprisingly non-lethal.”

“I was going to get you something lethal, but I thought your sisters would mind.” 

“They might, but I wouldn’t.” 

The Dag had finally finished unwrapping her present. “This is brilliant! Now I feel bad for getting you what I got you.” She leaned across Toast and kissed his cheek. “However I can’t help but notice that only Toast’s safety concerns you.”

Slit didn’t know how to respond. 

“What if I find myself in need of defending myself? Are you going to have my back, or-”

“Stop,” Toast told her. 

“I’m kinda confused,” Slit said to the Dag, when he found himself momentarily alone with her after the movie marathon was over. “Sometimes I think you’re hitting on me.”

“Oh, you have your charms and I’ve certainly noticed them, but I’m not interested in a relationship and you are hella desperate for a girlfriend.”

“I’m not desperate!”

She rubbed his head like she would Kenneth Shadow’s. “Slit, dear, if you were a bird, you’d be making a nest right now.”

Slit refused to talk to her for the rest of the night. Not that there was much of a rest of the night. They’d reached some unspoken agreement that it was bedtime. Slit was shown to Angharad’s old room, but he couldn’t bring himself to step foot inside. 

He spread his sleeping bag out on the living floor room. “I’ll keep Cheedo from sneaking down and opening her presents early,” he said. 

When everyone else had gone off to their beds - or, in Nux’s case, their significant other’s bed - Slit turned off all the lights and turned on the Christmas tree lights. He just stared at them until he was almost asleep. 

He pretended he was already asleep when he saw Toast creep back downstairs and put another present under the tree. He couldn’t resist examining it after she’d gone back upstairs. 

_To: Slit  
From: Santa Claus_

He smiled despite how silly it was. There was already a present ‘to Slit, from Toast’ under the tree, so he was very curious about what Santa Claus had gotten him. But mostly he was happy Santa Claus had remembered him even though he had to be on the naughty list.


End file.
